


It's Another Perfect Day

by FlyingSquirrely



Category: Thrilling Intent (Web Series)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-02
Updated: 2015-02-01
Packaged: 2018-03-10 03:29:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3275036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlyingSquirrely/pseuds/FlyingSquirrely
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...well. Perhaps for a yeti. Put down the damn glitter, Markus! Set before Wizarding High School and after Deck of Disaster. Technically AU now, with some recent events.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Another Perfect Day

**Author's Note:**

> For Theropod's secret santa gift.

It began with a sudden snowfall in the night. With the dawn, the sun obscured above heavy clouds, the grass vanished beneath a layer of white with not even their tips poking through. Trees bent double with the extra load, their branches bowed and brushing the ground more often than not. No horizontal surface was spared the overnight covering, not a single leaf or bow. Frost skittered across what little wasn’t touched by snow, forming delicate patterns on window panes and tree trunks.

Ashe shivers at the sight, turning away from the bar windows and back to her drink. Behind her she can hear the sound of Kier clinking and clattering away as he tries to smack the Kierfridgerator into some semblance of working. Without its odd ability to produce excessive heat (and the occasional fire-closely-followed-by-explosion), the temperature of the bar is swiftly dropping to less bearable levels.

She’s stooped to drinking keer. For once, its tendency to promote spontaneous human combustion might actually be preferable to the plummeting temperature. Thog seems to agree with her, he silently browsing a sheaf of documents in a corner behind the bar, one hand clasped lazily around a bottle of keer as he attempts to ignore out of existence the small plumes of smoke rising from his eyebrows.

The front door opens with a chill whip of wind and a frustrated mumble from Kier, who spits the Kierfridgerator’s decorations out of his face as they flutter in response. Gregor breezes back inside, liberally dusted with snow and shivering like he just emerged from the Prison of Lights.

…He didn’t, did he?

“Where’d you go, Gregor?” Ashe asks.

He slams the door shut behind him, tracking flakes across the floor as he approaches the bar to take a seat next to her. “I went to check my garden,” he says, frowning. “I think the snow killed off a lot of my vegetables.”

Gregor starts shaking the snow out of his gloves, hat, and hair, letting the clumps drop to the floor below with quiet splats. Honestly, Ashe would normally berate him for dripping water onto what is already very unstable wood, but she’s not cruel enough to tell him to do that back outside and it would be counterintuitive anyway. She just takes another swig of Keer, enjoying the (likely literal) burn.

Gregor’s silence turns prickly. Ashe glances up to see him furrowing his brows aggressively at her drink. Ah, this again. “The alcohol isn’t going to kill me, Gregor.”

“Well, it’s keer, you might be giving him too much credit? But that’s not the point,” Gregor shakes his head, sending small clumps of snow flying. “You’re not supposed to drink alcohol when it’s cold. Makes you even colder.” He nods.

“Not sure it makes much difference at this point,” Ashe mutters into her bottle. She raises her voice to audible levels. “Besides, we’re inside. I’m sure Kier will ‘fix’ the Kierfridgerator… soon… Hopefully. Maybe?” She grimaces at her drink, _almost_ reconsidering, then recalling the other person in the room with a keer. “And why aren’t you after Thog, too? He’s drinking.”

“Yeah,” Gregor says, “but he’s wearing a scarf,” as if that explains everything. Oh, if only she had some idea of how that odd little head of his worked, perhaps it would.

Ashe goes to say something, but pauses, turning to look at Thog. Huh. So he is. A vibrant _red_ scarf. _No points for guessing who made that._ “Gregor, how does that… It’s still going to have the same effect on him, scarf or no scarf.” She shakes her head.

“…So,” Gregor says, slowly, contemplatively, “you admit it’s bad to drink alcohol when it’s cold?”

Holding a finger up, she goes to object before she considers her previous statement and lowers her hand. Ashe narrows her eyes at Gregor. “Just how did I end up protesting my own point?”

He shrugs, but anything he might say in reply is lost as a horrendous ripping noise tears through the bar, followed by every door and window exploding. Ashe abandons her drink and dives behind the bar, closely followed by the clatter of Gregor doing the same. Starting violently and upsetting his keer all over his paperwork (which proceeds to melt goopily onto and then into the floor), Thog swears sharply and hunkers down, avoiding the mess of faintly smoking wood between his legs. She can’t see Kier, but judging from the scream, audible even over the chill gusts whipping through the bar, in his general direction he’s probably still alive.

“Adventurers… can you hear… me…” The voice, cutting through the wind despite its soft, clear enunciation, sounds familiar. Ashe peeps over the edge of the bar, searching for its source.

Markus’ head pops out of the smelting hole. “My love?” Ahah.

He slides the rest of the way out of the hole and, with his cloak whipping in the breeze, begins to float off the ground. Kier makes a mad leap for Markus’ legs, grabbing one and pulling him back down to steady him with a hand on Markus’ right shoulder. Markus pats Kier’s hair. “Thanks, buddy.” He strides out the door-less doorway, towing Kier behind him like a massive, fire-prone puppy.

Gregor wanders out after him and Ashe, after a moment spent frowning at the destruction of the bar, follows. (So much money, gone in seconds, at this point she isn’t even surprised anymore. It isn’t even their _fault_ , just being nearby is enough to bring down entire buildings whenever fate wants.) She hears Thog sigh heavily, but his stomping footsteps, that still somehow carry an impression of being utterly unimpressed with the world at large, finally trail after her own.

She arrives at the source of the voice, a familiar crack in the world.

“I cannot… stabilize the portal… from this side. Markus… may be able to…”

Markus places a hand over his heart. “Of course I can, my guiding star. Just leave it to Markus Velafi!” He holds out his other hand, which, Ashe notices with a mixture of worry and faint amusement, is shaking slightly in the cold.

The ethereal light of Markus’ magic flickers to life in a ring of dark flame around the crack. He clenches his fist and whipping tendrils shoot radially inwards, reaching for the edge of the crack, straining against some invisible force. One reaches its goal and suddenly the rest follow suit, snapping and hooking around and pulling the cloudgate open with a shriek.

…The blue is noticeably darker than usual, almost navy, and a sprinkling of brilliant glitter swirls within, far brighter than the snowflakes falling around them.

Of course, Markus jumps in without a second thought (but with a fading cry of “I’m coming, Kyl’il!”), dragging Kier with him.

“Is that safe?” Gregor asks, edging away from the portal.

“There’s really no way to tell. Markus certainly isn’t going to waste time letting us know when Kyl’il’s on the other side of this thing,” Ashe says.

Thog stamps his feet, sending puffs of snow up to be caught by the miniature tornado on their front lawn. “Our only hope of heat just went through that portal. We either freeze to death here, or face the horrors of… whatever’s inside there.” He rubs his arms and pulls a disgusted face, whether at the thought of what might be in the cloudgate or referring to Kier as their only hope, Ashe doesn’t know.

“Why do we only ever have certain death and probable certain death options?” Ashe complains, stepping into the eye of the storm nonetheless. “For once I’d like to have the choice of probable survival.”

“We’d choose the certain death ones anyway,” Gregor says, his cheerful, guileless smile undented as he joins her.

“I know we would, Gregor, I know we would,” Ashe pats his arm as the isle of the nine shines fades away.

She lands lightly on her feet, hopping to the side to let Gregor fly past her and skid to a stop. Her cheeks sting as the temperature, somehow, manages to drop even further and freezing flakes of glitter-snow are driven across her face by gale-force winds. Shading her eyes with a hand, she squints into the storm. Her eyebrows shoot skyward. Erm, more skyward.

Instead of the usual inviting cloudspace, the cloudgate’s interior looks like the center of a thundersnow. Deep gray clouds surround the pathway, and lightning arcs overhead and to the sides. The aforementioned glitter-snow glimmers in ways that should not be possible without a source of brighter light as it scrapes over her skin at high speed.

Speaking of high speeds, Thog careens out of the portal, slamming into Gregor with a shout and bringing them both down in a tangle of flailing limbs. Ashe huffs out a breathy chuckle and braces herself against the wind as she trudges over to them. Thog pushes himself upright as she reaches them, so Ashe offers Gregor a hand. He grabs her hand and she heaves him up. He’s heavy; not a shred of fat on him, but all those muscles are weighty.

“So, Thog,” Ashe says, only the barest hint of glee in her voice. “Enjoy your first trip through the cloudgate?”

He glares murderously at her, but the impact lessened by his red scarf fluttering madly in the wind. Ashe just smiles and claps him on the shoulder, turning to face the direction of the path.

“It’s okay, just be glad you didn’t spear yourself on my glaive,” Gregor tells him. Thog looks faintly ill at the thought.

With the exception of one incident involving lightning, Gregor’s glaive, and _too much glitter_ , they make it through the other portal relatively unharmed and only smoking faintly.

Ashe is immediately blasted with heat, a whole new kind of sting zinging through her body. She gasps, instinctively flinching back, eyes scanning the familiar wood and tables of the town hall to meet those of a spirit of light and fire (and her blond, half-demonic limpet). She drops her hand from its place on her sword hilt, listening to the thump of Gregor sticking his landing and Thog’s squashed-watermelon sound as he faceplants again.

“Kyl’il,” Ashe nods in greeting.

“Aesling,” Kyl’il replies. “Gregor, CEO Thog.”

“What took you guys so long?” Markus asks. Ashe wants to strangle him.

“It might just have been the _raging thundersnow_ we walked through to get here! Care to explain?” she says, clenching her fists to quell the temptation.

“Ah, that,” Kyl’il says before Markus can open his mouth. “It appears that Dont’s magic had an… unfavorable reaction with Markus’. Additionally, with the weather as it is, it is very possible that the cloudgate has been affected.”

Ashe narrows her eyes. “You’re off the hook this time, Markus.” The implied _next time_ goes unsaid and heard loud and clear. Markus sweats a little.

Now that she’s had time to adjust to the new temperature, Ashe realizes it isn’t really so unbearably warm, but rather a balmy, seventh-month-morning feel. The snow and glitter-snow collected on her clothing and in her hair from the trip melts quickly in the heat, dripping down her arms and off her nose. “Gods, that feels good after the cloudgate. And outside. And the bar. Why don’t we have a fireplace, Thog?”

He scowls, points at Kier sulking in the corner of the room closest to the fireplace. “We have him. Fuck if I’m going to give him another reason to set things on fire. Plus, I didn’t think we’d need one. We’re not exactly in a snowy region, if you remember the map.”

Ashe does remember the map, specifically the one in the bar that put the Shrouded Isles just sothp of Alaran and thus closer to the equator than the most even-weathered place in the Free Isles. “Hey, Kyl’il, not that I don’t appreciate the warmth, but did you call us here for another reason?”

“I did,” she says. “This storm is unnatural. There is magic in the snow, borne on the gusts, and it is unfriendly.”

Frowning, Markus holds out his hand in the direction of the window. “Detect magic.” He waits a few moments, and shakes his head. “It feels like it’s coming from everywhere, I can’t pinpoint a source.”

“You can see the problem,” Kyl’il drawls. She motions to the room at large. “I need to be here to keep this place warm, many of the spirit folk in this town can’t tolerate the cold. Those that can don’t have the means to fight something powerful enough to produce… this.”

“So, you’d like us to find and somehow incapacitate the one doing this?” Ashe says. Her voice rises at the end of the sentence, but she’s fairly sure she doesn’t actually need to ask.

“We’d be much obliged.”

“Of course we’ll help,” Markus says, earnestly. “You needn’t worry, we’re experienced with this kind of thing now, no offense Charoth.” He pats the little white-haired spirit folk on its head as it passes him.

It escapes Markus’ attempt to ruffle its hair to Ashe’s side, and she crouches down with a smile. “Hey there.”

Charoth tilts its mask up at her and gives a tiny nod.

“Are you doing alright? I hope the snowstorm isn’t too hard on you. I wish you could stay at the bar with us, but it’s probably better that you’re here with Kyl’il to keep you warm.”

It nods again, shyly pressing close to Ashe’s legs.

Above them, Thog bargains with Kyl’il about price, meeting the inconvenient resistance of love-struck Markus. (“Now about payment, we are a service, after all…” “No, no, no, Thog we can’t charge Kyl’il!” “I’m not losing a profit because you want to get laid, Markus. Sit down and shut up.” “I understand, nothing is without cost. I’m sure we can work something out, CEO Thog.” “Oh my god, is that my _title_ now?”) To her left, Gregor appears to be having some sort of quandary. He’s cuddling happily with Dont, but at the same time he’s trying to glare threateningly at Charoth. Ashe glares right back. He subsides, turning his attention back to the pigbat screeching quietly in his arms.

Kier finally leaves the fireplace (thank goodness, she thought he might have been entranced or something) to rejoin them.

“If we’re going to go searching outside, could we go back to the bar first? I’ve got some gadgets back there that might help us out.”

“I agree,” Ashe says, “but for a very different reason. We should at least try to find some warmer clothes. I know Gregor’s been knitting in his spare time, he might have some spare things.” She absently hugs Charoth to her side.

Kier pouts at her dismissal of his gadgets. Like hell she’ll let him pick up more trinkets of death before they go searching through a blizzard for some unspecified doom.

“So it’s settled then,” Thog’s monotone baritone interrupts any of Kier’s possible protests. “With the understanding that the storm hinders your ability to obtain payment at this time, upon completion of the job and cessation of the storm, we will receive appropriate compensation for our service.”

Kyl’il nods formally, “That is acceptable.”

“Normally I’d be more hesitant to come to an agreement on those terms, but you’ve been trustworthy enough in the past, I suppose,” Thog mutters. “Alright you lot. Deal’s been accepted, time to go do your jobs.”

Gregor leaps to his feet, pigbat in hand and eyes shining. “Let go kill a snowstorm!”


End file.
